You just never know what to expect from Hayley when it comes to clothing. I’ve seen her come out of her room in a light lilac dress with flaming red tights. I’ve seen her in a striped shirt with checkered shorts. I’ve seen her take a poncho and wear it as a skirt. She’s also known to wear an old sundress of mine over a t-shirt with three beaded necklaces and legwarmers. She wears it all and sometimes she wears it all at the same time.

Sometimes I want to pin a sign to her back that says “I dress myself” just so people know it’s not me.

No, I’m mostly kidding, I’m pretty relaxed about letting her wear what she wants, even when we go out. The only time I draw the line is when it’s inappropriate like a huge sweater in July or a pair of shorts in the dead of Winter and we’re going outside. Or the other week when she wanted to wear her bathing suit and jeans to storytime at the library.

However, despite being used to her flair for the unexpected in fashion, I was not prepared for the night before last.

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You know what’s fun? A baby shower. You know what’s as much fun? A virtual baby shower! An online baby shower was organized for Liz, Christina, and Tammie and in lieu of gifts, we were all asked to share some of the best advice we ever received and some of the most horrendous “assvice” we ever received.

I think the best advice I ever got was one of the hardest to follow – sleep when the baby sleeps. It was a bit easier with Hayley, because when Breanna was born I couldn’t just go and nap with her since I had to take care of Hayley too. However, even back then it wasn’t always as easy as “oh, she’s asleep, I’ll nap too!” Sometimes it was hard to just shut off and sleep and other times it just wasn’t a convenient time such as when it was time for me to eat lunch. A lot of times I made do with using her nap time to just sit quietly. Since she only really napped ON me for the first several months, that was easy to do. I’d sit at my desk and when she fell asleep I could poke around online or watch TV and not do anything tiring. A lot of times that was good enough for me.

Still, it IS good advice in general and if you can do it, I highly recommend it.

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I’ve finally figured out what it is that I hate about housework. It’s not because I’m a slob; rather I’ve often referred to myself as a neat freak trapped inside a messy person’s body. I love when things are clean. I like when everything is sparkly and all the toys are picked up and put away and I can walk through the living room without tripping over the little Bert from the Sesame Street playset, stubbing my toe on the Fisher Price piano, or stepping on a rogue Cheerio.

Not only do I feel happy and relaxed when everything is straightened up, I also love – in theory at least – the look of rooms in the Ikea catalog that I stash in my desk drawer like it’s porn and if you asked what my favorite design style is, I love the whole Asian minimalist look tremendously. You would never guess though, because we have so much STUFF everywhere, so much clutter, that minimalist is definitely not the first thing that would come to mind. Our home decor is more like “comfort meets exploded toy store”.

However, clutter frustrations aside, there are two major reasons why I hate the efforts of housework.

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I could never ever do this myself, but Knitty’s knit umbrella is totally awesome.

Some really cool Crafty Fridge Magnets.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Alec Baldwin ever since the tape was leaked where he left an enraged voicemail on his 11-year-old daughter’s cell phone, calling her a “rude little pig”. Ever since it was released I’ve seen and heard so many people calling him a disgrace and a terrible father, and an abusive bastard among other things.

I’ve been thinking about what I think of the whole situation and about him as a father, and I’ve wondered whether I should say anything at all since what I think may not be the most popular stance.

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All the people who roll their eyes at Mommybloggers won’t like this very much, but I can tell you that I am looking forward to a new online show called “In the Motherhood”, it stars Lisa Remini. Does the name sound familiar? It should – she starred on “King of Queens”. The new show will take a humourous approach to the true to life stress that mothers face on a daily basis.

What’s interesting about this show is that it functions so completely online, to a point where you can contribute to it yourself. You can log on to In the Motherhood’s website and share your own stories with themes such as “you’re child’s worst public meltdown” and “your funniest mother-in-law child-rearing advice”. All you need to do is type out your contribution in paragraph form and it will be transformed into a script; from there an online community of moms will vote on the best entries which will then be featured on a “webisode”.

The community has already launched and the first webisode will air on the Ellen DeGeneres show on May 11th.

You can see a clip of the show right here:

I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to seeing it. That little girl using the “potty” for the first time cracked me up!

A great, fascinating blog: No Impact Man, all about a New York City family’s attempt to go totally green and help save our planet.

If you are a woman (heck, even if you’re a man), and you have ever looked in the mirror and not liked what you saw, then you need to read this. You need to read it and then you need to stand in front of your mirror again and accept and love what you see looking back at you. Thanks to OMSH for the link.

The weather has been beautiful lately but here’s a great site for a rainy day – you can make all kinds of incredibly cool paper toys with your kids. I already have a bunch of them printed up and waiting to be worked on. They’ll also be great for times when Breanna is napping and Hayley and I are in the living room waiting for her to wake up.